M. de Lally was shut up there, resolved to hold out to the last in a place which was badly defended, and where he was generally hated. The siege commenced in the month of March, 1760; on the 27th of November it was changed to a blockade. It was only on the 16th of January, 1761, that the directors of the French Company at last forced the hand of the general, indomitable in the midst of ruins. "No person can have a higher opinion of General Lally than I," wrote Colonel Coote, who had just razed the ramparts and magazines of Pondicherry. "He has striven against obstacles that I believed insurmountable, and he has triumphed over them. There is not in India another man who could have kept on foot so long an army without pay and without resources on any hand." No aid had come from France to the last general who still defended her power and glory in the Indies; the cause was forever lost, and no one would ever more attempt to revive it. The fate of M. de la Bourdonnais and that of Dupleix remained as a gloomy proof of the ingratitude of corrupt and feeble governments; that of M. de Lally frightened the most courageous hearts and disgusted the most far-sighted spirits. Shut up in the Bastile of his own will at the end of the year 1763, he remained there nineteen months without being examined. When his trial finally began, the animosities which he had imprudently engendered in India rose up against him with an irresistible violence. Accused of treason in regard to the interest of the king and the company, he was condemned to death on the 6th of May, 1766. Three days later he expired on the scaffold in the Placede Greve, being gagged like the worst of criminals. At the same moment. Lord Clive, rich, powerful, and a brilliant member of Parliament, was returning to the Indies as Governor-General of Bengal, charged with reforming its entire administration. The contrast is sorrowful, and explains the frequent checks received by France in distant enterprises, which, grandly conceived and courageously pursued by the patriotic devotion of citizens, were yet through laxity and cowardice abandoned by the government.
Success so great and so sustained beyond the bounds of Europe lent new force and zeal to the struggles of England on the continent. In Germany, the Duke de Broglie had successfully repulsed the attacks of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick on his intrenchments at Bergher, on the 13th of April, 1759. The united armies under M. de Coutades had invaded Hesse and advanced on the Weser. They were occupying Minden when Prince Ferdinand attacked them on the 1st of August. The action of the two French generals was badly concerted, and the rout was complete. The English infantry played a glorious part in the victory. The cavalry was commanded by Lord George Sackville, son of the Duke, of Dorset. Prince Ferdinand gave him orders to advance. Some contradiction in the terms produced a momentary hesitation on the part of the English commander, and he resisted the representations of his aides-de-camp. "The orders are positive," said young Fitzroy; "the French are flying, and the opportunity is glorious." Lord Granby put himself in motion; the voice of his superior officer compelled him to stop. When the scruples of Lord George were finally satisfied, the battle was won, the enemy in retreat, and the reputation of the English commander so seriously compromised that he was obliged to resign from his rank and ask to undergo a court-martial. The sentence was, like public opinion, severe. Lord George Sackville was declared unworthy to serve in his Majesty's armies. He already belonged to the court opposition which was thronging around the heir to the throne, the princess dowager, and the Marquis of Bute, the acknowledged favorite of mother and son. King George II. intimated to his grandson that he had prohibited Lord George from presenting himself before him. The day was not far from dawning in which the memories of Minden, despite their abiding bitterness, could not impede the proud career of Lord George Sackville.
Mr. Pitt was triumphant at home as abroad. In spite of the king's small predilection for his minister, the latter had obtained the garter for his brother-in-law, Lord Temple. Enormous subsidies were voted by the House without demur. "It is the wisest economy to spare nothing in the expenses of war," he had said, without circumlocution, when he was presenting the budget to Parliament. His animosity against France was on the increase. "Formerly I would have been content to see her on her knees," he said, in privacy; "to-day I wish to see her overturned in the dust." Notwithstanding the persistent bravery of the French nobles, who are always ready to die on the battle-field, the disorder of the troops and the inferiority of the generals who commanded in opposition to Frederick II. and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, sadly subserved the hatred of the great English minister.
The victories of England in both worlds and the triumphant supremacy of Pitt in the Houses were not sufficient to assure the success of their allies on the continent. At one time the great Frederick thought he saw all Germany rallied round him. Now, defeated and fortified in Saxony during the winter of 1760, he sought alliances everywhere, and everywhere saw himself repelled. "There remain to me but two allies," said he; "valor and perseverance." Repeated victories, earned at the sword's point by dint of boldness and at extreme danger, could not even protect Berlin. The capital of Prussia saw itself compelled to open its gates to the foe, on the sole condition that the Cossacks should not go beyond its precincts. When the regular troops withdrew, the generals had not been able to prevent the pillage of the town. The heroic efforts of the King of Prussia only ended in his keeping one foot still in Saxony. On the 10th of March he wrote to Count Algarotti, "It is certain that we have only experienced disasters during the last campaign, and that we have found ourselves nearly in the same situation as the Romans after Cannes. Unfortunately, toward the end I had an attack of gout. My left hand and my feet were disabled, and I could only let myself be carried from place to place, a witness to my own reverses. Happily, the speech of Barca to Hannibal can be applied to our enemies, 'You know how to conquer, but you do not know how to profit by victory.'" The cruel bombardment of Dresden in the month of August, 1760, was like an overflowing of the long pent-up rage of Frederick II. He had lately said, "Miserable fools that we are, we have only an instant to live, and we make that instant as sorrowful as we can. We take pleasure in destroying the masterpieces of art that time has spared us; we seemed resolved to leave behind us the odious memories of our ravages and of the calamities we have caused." The monuments and the palaces of Dresden fell beneath the fire of the Prussian cannon in the face of the flames which devoured the suburbs.
It is a relief in the midst of the horrors of war and the ferocious courage there displayed, to recall an act of disinterested bravery and a devotion which has no other recompense than glory. Marshall de Broglie, who had become general-in-chief of the French armies, had detailed M. de Castries to succor Wesel, which was besieged by the hereditary Prince of Brunswick. The French corps had just arrived, and was still in bivouac. On the night between the 15th and 16th of October, the Chevalier d'Assas, captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was sent to reconnoitre. He was marching in front of his men when he just fell into the midst of a body of the enemy. The Prince of Brunswick was preparing to attack. All the guns were levelled on the young captain. "If you stir, you are a dead man," muttered threatening voices. Without answering, M. d'Assas collected all his energies. "A moi Auvergne; voila les ennemis," he cried. He fell immediately, pierced by twenty bullets; but the action of Klostercamp, thus begun, was glorious for France. The hereditary prince was obliged to abandon the siege of Wesel and to recross the Rhine. The French corps maintained their positions.
The war still continued, bloody, monotonous, and fruitless; but a great event had just taken place, which was speedily to change the face of Europe. On the morning of the 25th of October, King George II. had risen as usual, being as regular and methodical at seventy-six as he had been in his youth. He asked for the foreign dispatches, when his servants heard the noise of a fall. They rushed in. The king was on the ground, and already breathing his last. When his daughter, the Princess Amelia, was summoned, she being deaf and very near-sighted bent towards her father in order to catch his last words. In alarm she started back. King George II. was dead.
George III.